Categories
contests giveaway

New Release Giveaway for Liberation’s Vow – GIVEAWAY COMPLETED

liberation's vow coverCONGRATULATIONS KATHLEEN M!

She is the grand prize winner of the $25 Amazon gift card.

Congratulations to all entrants who receive one free copy of the new, exclusive, sexy companion story Liberation’s Mystery featuring an all-new couple, Brielle and Kristof!

The giveaway is now over. For new release announcements, fun behind-the-scenes secrets, and lots of freebies and a free introductory book, sign up for my Reader’s Group. Thanks for reading!


I’m giving away one $25 Amazon gift card to a lucky winner in celebration of releasing Liberation’s Vow! Everyone who enters will receive a small prize (to be decided – a picture or a short story related to Liberation’s Vow). Please follow these steps:

  1. Purchase the book and then
  2. Click the link below and enter to win.

Here is the entry form: GIVEAWAY COMPLETED.

New Release newsletter subscribers got an easy one-click entry back in June, and all of my VIP Readers are automatically entered. (Note: No purchase necessary; one entry per person; void where prohibited.)

The big winner will be notified via email on July 31 and also announced here on my blog.

Good luck!

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Categories
blog tour contests freebie

Win free stuff! SFR Summer Cafe Last Chance

Win free stuff with the SFR Brigade Summer Cafe Blog Hop!

Summer Cafe banner

My week has passed  –  June 22nd (Androids and Aliens). I hope you enjoyed learning about pink flamingos and edible hair dye! Meanwhile, there are still other weeks you can visit themed blogs, enter the week’s contests for books + gift cards + swag, and win!

  • Supernova Hot – 29th June-5th July
  • Space Opera 2 – 6th-12th July

Here was the “menu” for my week:

menu“Starters” are short stories and novellas, “Main Courses” are novels, and “Extras” are the things you can win that week. Good luck, and thanks for participating!

Categories
contests giveaway liberations kiss science fiction romance

Goodreads Giveaway!

From now until release day, enter to win a signed paperback copy of Liberation’s Kiss!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Liberation's Kiss by Wendy Lynn Clark

Liberation’s Kiss

by Wendy Lynn Clark

Giveaway ends June 30, 2015.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to Win

Categories
blog tour contests giveaway liberations kiss robotics faction science fiction romance

SFR Brigade Summer Cafe Blog Hop: Edible hair dye and pink flamingos

This post is part of the SFR Brigrade Summer Cafe Blog Hop. Check out the other blogs featuring short story appetizers, main dish novels, and sweet swag desserts all about Androids & Aliens this week. Scroll to the bottom of this post to enter to win!

Summer Cafe banner

Edible hair dye and pink flamingos

Question: What color are flamingos?

two pink flamingos
Flamingos Laguna Colorada” by [ Valdiney Pimenta] – Own work by uploader. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Answer: Flamingos are gray!

Perhaps you only know pink flamingos? Gray flamingos turn pink because they eat pink shrimp. (Mostly brine shrimp, also known as sea monkeys.) And shrimp turn pink when cooked because they eat caroteniod-producing planktonic algae. You see the food chain in action every time you look at a pink flamingo.

Eating your way to a new color is nothing new to the animal kingdom. Cardinals are red because they eat tasty berries containing carotenoids, and finches metabolize these same carotenoids into yellow. If you keep them in captivity and feed them a diet without the tasty red berries, their colors will fade after a few molts, and you will no longer have vibrant birds. Similarly, zoo keepers and salmon farmers have to supplement diets or else their pink flamingos and salmon will revert to dull gray.

Melanin pigments our human eyes, hair, and skin, and the amounts and ratios of the different types of melanin determine whether we are blue-eyed blondes, mysterious brunettes, or ravishing redheads. This is generally controlled by genetics or Lady Clairol. But Lady Clairol has a ways to go to catch up to nature! Box colors and spray tans can take hours, color contacts rip or fall out, and as soon as you stop the applications, you too will revert back to your normal color.

[See pink hair on my Sci-Fi Robots board on Pinterest.]

In the science fiction future, I think we will definitely control our colors with more fun and ease. Leloo in The Fifth Element discovered a makeup device that applied perfect color with one click, and the receptionist for Mr. Zorg spent hours instantly changing from one nail color to another.

Fifth element picture
The Fifth Element receptionist and her fingernail-o-matic [check out https://scifiinterfaces.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/fingernail-o-matics/ for a comparison of which is better, the Fifth Element version or the 1990 Total Recall model]
Even now, cosmetology and technology change all the time, whether it is the recent discover of shellac “Gelish” nails that harden under UV light and last for weeks, or the discovery of paint that will never fade.

I like the idea of changing hair color by eating. (I like food!) On the run from pursuers, my characters in Liberation’s Kiss go under cover like flamingos and cardinals: by popping melanin pills.

3d bookIn this excerpt, reprogrammed assassin android Xan has just returned to his injured love Cressida’s tiny hotel room with food, medicine, and a strategy for keeping her safe for one more night…

His confidence filled her with confidence. They had already survived this long against incredible odds. She filled her belly with the delicious protein noodles, then watched him testing the water in the shower. New exciting thoughts shivered through her. Him, naked. Washing her, equally naked. And then, touching…

“Um, what are you doing in there?” she asked. Her voice sounded too loud for the small room.

He shut off the water and returned with a brown bag. Putting away her leftovers into the delivery cart – keeping it fresh and warm for later – he drew out cosmetics for changing her appearance. She swallowed a slow-acting melanin pill and a second pill that directed some of it to the stroma of her irises, to increase the Rayleigh scattering shifting her eyes from blue to green.

He held up a tub of Bruisease. “This has to be kept away from water. I know it’s going to hurt, but how about changing the rest of your appearance in the shower first?”

She swallowed the sudden dryness. “You’ll need to help me.”

His eyes remained steady as a rock. “Anything.”

She rotated her feet to the ground and then eased out, putting slow pressure on her heels. Pain shrieked up her legs. She sucked in a breath through her teeth.

He eased an arm around her bare shoulder blades and helped her to stand, supporting her into the tiny room. She shivered on the cool tile. He adjusted to a comforting temperature and detached the nozzle from the wall. The stream eased down her sore back like a warm caress.

She rested her hands on the tile while he rinsed her body, then had her lean forward, hands against the wall, and scrubbed the depiliatory cream into her scalp. Her hair dissolved like a color; she watched it disappear down the drain, careful not to get any splashes on her brows or lashes. Gentle hands stroked her head, tracing the soft lines of her bare skull, sensual. Under his relaxing ministrations, hair regrowth formula adhered to her scalp, and he rinsed the layers away, revealing the first bit of fuzz. She touched it tentatively. Red. In a few hours, it would grow as long as her finger tips, and in a day, it would reach her shoulders. She swallowed a calcium tablet and an E supplement, trusting him as he remade her into a new person. Without those minerals, her new hair would turn brittle and break away, fragile as strands of spun glass.

His eyes traced the fuzz as his hands did, an odd expression on his face.

“You’re sad,” she guessed.

He flashed to her in surprise. She had been correct. “I like you as you are.”

“It’ll come back,” she said. “In a few days.”

His thumb stroked her cheek. Absent, like he didn’t notice. “Real hair takes so much longer to grow.”

She swallowed. “Then you’ll just have to wait with me until it’s all back.”

His eyes skipped up to her scalp again. He rubbed the softness, pressed her briefly to his chest – making a wet print on his flight suit – and shut off the water, allowing the warmth of radiation to dry her naturally and fully. Her chemise and panties puffed out, made fluffy by the warmth. He scooped his arm under hers and helped her back to the bed…

 – From Liberation’s Kiss, available July 1 (Pre-order now for a special price 80% off!)

If you could change something about yourself with one easy pill, what would you change?

Thanks for stopping by! Check out the other blogs and enter the Rafflecopter below to win free ebooks, gift cards, phone wallpaper, pens, and notebooks!A&Amenu

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Categories
blog tour contests freebie

Win free stuff! SFR Summer Cafe

Win free stuff with the SFR Brigade Summer Cafe Blog Hop!

Summer Cafe banner

I’m participating on the week of June 22nd (Androids and Aliens) with Liberation’s Kiss. Meanwhile, here are the other weeks you can visit themed blogs, enter the week’s contests for books + gift cards + swag, and win!

  • Space Opera 1 – 1st-7th June
  • Weird Science – 8th-14th June
  • Dystopia – 15th-21st June
  • Androids and Aliens – 22nd-28th June
  • Supernova Hot – 29th June-5th July
  • Space Opera 2 – 6th-12th July

Here is the “menu” for my week:

menu“Starters” are short stories and novellas, “Main Courses” are novels, and “Extras” are the things you can win that week.

Categories
contests San Juan Island Stories

Facebook Party May 1 – All Invited for So Many Chances to Win!

 
It’s Time to Party!
hosted by Marketing for Romance Writers (#MFRWorg)
JOIN ME & over a dozen other authors as we share excerpts from our contemporary romances. Get ideas for some new books to enjoy this spring. With all heat levels represented, there’s something for everyone. Join in on the hourly contests and win prizes. This is a party you do not want to miss and it’s going on all day on May 1st.
Confirmed Participating Authors INCLUDE:
Victoria Barbour – Vicki Batman – Paloma Beck – Gemma Brocato – Candy Caine – Lisa Carlisle – Carly Carson – Margie Church – Karen Cino – Wendy Lynn Clark – Margo Bond Collins – Kandie Delley – Emerald – Candace Gold – Lily Harlem – Susan Jaymes – Mona Karel – Patricia Kiyono – Adriana Kraft – Jan Meredith – Siobhan Muir – Martha O’Sullivan – Skylin O’Thomas – Victoria Pinder – Irene Preston – Jana Richards – Christi Williams – Sabrina York
CLICK HERE to Attend!